Venezuelan · Main
Arepa Reina Pepiada
- Intermediate
- 45 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
Leads with acid holding everything up to the light.
Ingredients
- 250 g masarepa, precooked white corn flour
- 600 ml warm water, about 40C (105F)
- 8 g fine salt
- 1 tbsp neutral oil, for the pan
- 400 g chicken breast
- 1 bay leaf and half an onion, for poaching
- 1 large ripe avocado, about 200 g flesh
- 80 g mayonnaise
- 15 g coriander leaves, chopped
- 1 tbsp lime juice
- 2 spring onions, finely sliced
- salt and white pepper
Equipment
Skillet
The skills inside
ArepasThe bare simmer: holding liquid below the boilSalted water & the float testShaping by handThe wobble & the skewer: testing a bake
The words inside
Serrated, Slicers & the Long Blades
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Poach the chicken in barely trembling salted water with the bay and onion until a skewer meets no resistance at the thickest point, about 18 minutes, then cool it in its liquid and pull the meat into long threads with two forks. 18 min
- Whisk the salt into the warm water, rain in the masarepa with one hand while stirring with the other, and leave it 5 minutes: it swells from a loose batter into a soft dough that holds a fingerprint. 5 min
- Knead 2 minutes with wet hands and pat into 5 discs 1.5 cm thick; if the rim cracks the dough is dry, so work in another spoonful of water until the edge stays smooth. 2 min
- Cook on a lightly oiled cast iron pan over medium heat until each face is matte, freckled and lifts cleanly, about 6 minutes a side, then finish in a 200C (400F) oven for 12 minutes, until the arepa sounds hollow when tapped. 6 min
- Fold the shredded chicken through the mashed avocado, mayonnaise, coriander, lime and spring onion, seasoning until it tastes faintly over salted, because it will be eaten inside bland corn.
- Split each hot arepa around the edge with a serrated knife leaving a hinge, scrape out any doughy crumb from the centre, and fill.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Shaping by hand 85 recipes
- The pieces match: weighed, or judged against each other rather than by dividing the mass by eye, so that no piece is half again the size of its neighbour.
- Surfaces are smooth and unbroken with no cracks, tears, or dry patches, and the seams are sealed and sitting underneath.
- The shape is defined and it holds while the tray waits: it has not slumped, spread, or relaxed back out of its form.
- Nothing is trapped that should not be: no air pocket where filling should be, no filling breaking through the surface, and no excess flour greying the outside.
- They finish together in the heat: no piece done while another is still raw, which is the only test that the first mark was met.
Where it goes wrong The dough was worked past its point or shaped without a rest, so it fought back: the pieces spring out of shape on the tray and bake tight, uneven, and torn along the surface.
The wobble & the skewer: testing a bake 135 recipes
- Tested at the true centre and the thickest point, not at the convenient edge: the edge is done long before the answer is.
- The skewer comes out as the recipe describes, clean and dry or carrying the stated moist crumb, and it does the same on a second test in a different spot.
- The wobble is read in motion: nudged, the centre moves as one set mass with a faint tremble, rather than a liquid ripple travelling across the surface.
- The other signs agree with the test: risen and just shrinking from the sides, the top set and dry to a light touch with no wet gloss on it.
- Pressed lightly at the middle it springs back and leaves no lasting dent.
Where it goes wrong It was judged on the clock and on how the edges looked, so a centre still liquid went to the rack and sank as it cooled, a dense wet seam under a perfectly browned top.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Pinot Noir or Gamay
- Also Right
- Chenin Blanc
- From the Taps
- Bière de garde
- Zero-Proof
- Verbena iced tea
Chicken is wine’s most agreeable partner. Match the SAUCE, not the bird: cream to oak, tomato to Sangiovese’s acid, herbs to Loire whites.
Saved on this device and kept across visits: export from My Menu to move them.